Those Who Awakened Conqueror's Haki!

Sengoku laid bare his feelings before Ace, and his words made Ace's pupils contract sharply.

He had never expected Sengoku, the Fleet Admiral of the Marines, to harbor such thoughts. Before coming here, he had imagined all sorts of possible responses from Sengoku, but the one thing he had never anticipated was that Sengoku intended to side with the New Marines.

Probably no one could imagine that Sengoku, the Fleet Admiral of the Marines, would support the so-called "rebels" of the New Marines.

Of course, Ace had never regarded the New Marines as rebels. Even so, he understood that the conflict between the New Marines and Marine Headquarters ran very deep. That conflict stemmed from the inherent positions of the two factions.

Marine Headquarters, established with the support of the World Government, had its own inherent stance, while the New Marines, built by Tsugikuni Yoriichi by offering protection to ordinary nations in the New World, possessed a high degree of autonomy.

The New Marines and the World Government were bound to be unable to coexist peacefully as they competed for more territory and population.

Ace was no longer a child. The growth and learning of recent years had allowed him to see the true nature of both the New Marines and the World Government.

Strictly speaking, there was no fundamental difference between the New Marines and the World Government.

Though Tsugikuni Yoriichi's New Marines protected the nations of the New World from pirate attacks, they also drew benefits from the citizens of those protected nations, using the fruits of ordinary people's labor and livelihoods to sustain their forces.

The New Marines' sources of income were no different from those of the World Government. Perhaps the only difference was that the New Marines had ports of their own, and the benefits